Abraham, Rachel, Soren and Liam. Our life together in Smalltown, Idaho.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Liam Update: January 2014

Liam is our snuggly sweet whiny stubborn wild relaxed little redhead. I just want to eat him, he's so cute. Some highlights from the past three months: *When you are in Liam's good graces, he will frequently and spontaneously proclaim, "You besfwend! You my besfwend!" Sometimes (to me) he'll say, "I love you, Mommy. You my mother." But if he's upset, he'll take it back. "You not my mother!" *One morning the boys were taking a bath and I heard a sudden splash, followed by Liam screaming, followed by more vigorous splashing. I (correctly) figured Soren had clonked Liam and was now flailing around in a rage, and I didn't really want to wrestle a wet, angry Soren out of the bath, so I took my time moseying over to the bathroom to check out the situation. When I finally arrived, I was horrified to see lots-- LOTS-- of blood dripping off Liam's head, flowing down his scrunched up, screaming face, and streaming in little rivers down his chest and belly. "Soren!" I screamed in shock. "What did you do?" Soren, who hithertofore had been covering his head and kicking water, stopped long enough to look at his brother. Then he joined in the screaming. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?" he screamed. "ABE!" I called. Soren started crying hysterically. "What have I done? WHAT HAVE I DONE?" Abe came stumbling into the bathroom in his untied robe and removed Soren--still screaming-- from the tub. ("IS HE GOING TO DIE?? DID I KILL HIM?") I laid Liam down in the water to clean his head wound. The bath water turned red, making it look like I was bathing him in a pool of blood. It turns out there was just a tiny little ding on his head. I'd always heard that head wounds bled a lot. Now I know. I think it took longer to calm Soren down than it did to calm Liam down. While I cuddled Liam in his towel, Soren kept bringing peace offerings. *One evening for his chore Liam got out the hand vac and spent probably 30 minutes finding individual things to suck up off the living room floor. When he was done, Briar asked him to put the vacuum away. You would have thought she had asked him to throw his teddy bear away. He wept and cried as though the wound had cut so deeply it would never heal. "Briar told me put away chore!" he wailed to me, over and over again. *Liam calls boiled eggs "roll eggs," because of the way I roll them around to peel the shell.

...because while clothes may be optional for breakfast, a baseball helmet definitely is not.

*During primary one Sunday Liam noticed a wound on his finger. I was sitting with another class, behind his, so I watched as he showed it to his teacher. "How did you get that?" the teacher asked. "A man killed me!" Liam told him, then added gun noises: "Pshew! Pshew!" Then he changed his mind. "A lion got me!" he said. "Raaawwwwwrr!"

Playing in the clean laundry.

*Mr. Independent got his own hot pads out of a kitchen drawer in order to be able to get his own hot food from the microwave, which he could only reach by pushing a chair over to climb on. *When he's annoyed with something or someone, Liam will say, in an exasperated tone, "Jeepers!" *Sometimes he'll also adorably say, "Whew! That was a close one!" *Liam has a habit of disappearing at the end of our block of church meetings. He thinks it's hilarious to disappear in the crowd of people, laughing and looking back to make sure he's being pursued. Usually we'll find him in the gym, running around with his belly pooched out, giggling like he's in an asylum. One Sunday, however, I couldn't find him anywhere. Not in the gym. Not in any of the classrooms. Finally a teen from our ward noticed my frantic searching and pointed at the chapel doors. "He went in there a while ago," she said. Dear Lord. There was another ward in there trying to hold sacrament meeting. I peeked into the closed-off overflow section in the back, hoping she had meant he'd gone in there. Nope. Finally I took a deep breath and opened the chapel doors. There was a lady up front, saying a prayer. Several people looked up at me judgmentally from behind bowed heads and half-closed eyes. And there was Liam, running back and forth. He saw me, starting giggling (read: belly laughing), and shot up an aisle. He ran all the way up onto the stand, past the organ (where the organist tried unsuccessfully to snag him), and into the choir seats. I was mortified. What could I do? I couldn't go charging up there myself. The lady finally finished her prayer and I held up one threatening finger. Liam giggled and ducked behind a wall. I held up a second finger. He stopped smiling. I held up a third finger--and mercifully he began walking back towards me. "Thank you," I prayed silently. I put a firm hand under his armpit and marched him out to the car, vowing never to show my face in the church again. *Liam ran in the Tater Tot Trot. It was adorable. He chugged all the way around the track at his own determined little pace. He didn't win-- but he didn't lose, either. :)

Santa brought Liam a headlamp and he wore it nonstop for about 72 hours. Apparently it is comfortable sleepwear.

*On Mondays, my sister watches my boys. It's good bonding time for Liam and his auntie. Because he doesn't have preschool on Mondays he and Collette will go to the cute coffee shop in town that her friend owns. They'll drink hot cocoa together. Afterwards, she'll buy him a toy at the thrift store. One day I came to pick up the boys and Liam and Collette had just awoken from a shared nap. They came out of her bedroom together, all sleepy-faced and fuzzy-haired. Adorable. *Liam is the best nap buddy. He's very snuggly and will pretty much sleep for as long as I want to sleep. I love to curl up with him in bed on a sunny afternoon before Soren comes up from school. *Liam has become obsessed with the color red. It's his most favorite color in the world. I suspect this may be because it's the only color he can identify consistently. *For Halloween, Liam was a Power Ranger. Cutest little Power Ranger there ever was. I even got him to sing, "Go, go power rangers!" *Liam sometimes gags on something, then coughs a lot, then throws up. He does this on ordinary days, when he is otherwise well. He'll cry for about 10 seconds and then move on. He'll often thank me for cleaning up his barfy mess.

Thankful for his morning applesauce and pancakes.

*A favorite thing: Liam's sweet face beaming beautifully from the window of the preschool bus, turning to look at me as it goes 'round the corner. Little chubby hand waving and blowing a kiss. One morning (at bus time) I got this text from Abe: "That little blown kiss just kills me." It kills me too. *From my Happies Journal: "Right now Liam-- who had a late nap-- is sitting by me, drawing (very cheerfully) a picture of a giant Liam with sharp, jaggedy teeth who is eating Mommy, Daddy, and Soren. He is narrating this all with wide eyes and enthusiastic gestures. *In preschool, Liam learned about stop and go. He likes to run up ahead of us on walks and then point his palm out: "Stop!" Then he'll put it down with a flourish. "Go!" We spend a lot of time stopping. *New word: disappeared. "Mommy? Where's my ball?"

*New word: disgusting. (Pointing at the food he's been served for dinner: "That's usgussting!")

*The boys and I helped our neighbor friend Kacie move a few things into her new apartment. Liam would carry something in, set it down, pant a lot, and say "whew!" ostentatiously before heading back out to the car for another load. *A conversation: Mommy (after kissing Liam all over his cute fuzzy head) "Oh, you are just so delicious!"Liam: No, Mommy! I not food!Mommy: Oh, you're not food? Liam: No! I Liam!Mommy: Well, can I still just eat a little tiny bit of you? Pleeaaase?Liam: Ooookaaaaay. *Sometimes Liam will play a game where he crawls around and alternates between pretending to be a dog, a cat, and a baby. The dog is my favorite because he will bring me a ball in his mouth and we can play fetch.

Like so. Footwear on all four limbs is optional.

*Liam is a very easy person to travel with. Abe and I brought him along with us while we ran some errands and he happily talked to himself the whole time we were driving around. He would make weird sounds, have conversations in varying voices, and vibrate his lips. *A joke, by Liam: "Poop! Ehhhhhhh!" (imagine the "Ehhhh" as a Sesame Street Bert type laugh.) *Liam says "airplane" "nowplane."